Euronews

The Ambrosetti Forum in northern Italy has seen a group of European leaders call for more democracy to resolve the euro crisis.

Italy’s prime minister warned of the rise of nationalism as economies tanked, and the EU president says he will be bringing forward a late 2014 meeting on integration, but there was a warning on the ECB’s buying of debt.

“It favours short-term bond emissions, but after that you need long term ones as well; and if interest rates rise again, it will be very bad for the European Central Bank, and the States will have to fill that hole.
In general terms, it’s not going to solve the problem of toxic assets: you move from pocket to pocket, from one wallet to another – from the market to the banks. The ECB is already very exposed on the market, more than the Federal Reserve,” said former Italian finance minister Giulio Tremonti.

With Senator John McCain also on the shores of Lake Como for the forum, euronews asked him if America would play a role in the crisis.

“I do not think that the United States will either help or harm in the economic crisis in Europe, because we have our own economic crisis,” he said.

Our reporter said the talks have been wide-ranging and have brought together a number of key figures.

“This meeting has been a quite rare moment, because the Ambrosetti forum has brought the financial and the entrepreneurial worlds face to face with global politics. All have been quite well represented. Demands, proposals and ideas came out of this meeting under the slogan ‘The future, today’,” said Diego Malcangi.